Luigi snuck a look at me and mouthed, Help me.

“What’s that?” I pointed at a model on a conference table

“This, boys, is the Sistine Chapel, the Mona Lisa, and the Last Supper all rolled into one.” He threw his arms wide like a used car salesman. “It’s my masterpiece, Autumn Hall.”

Autumn Hall was a massive mixed-use development planned to skirt the new freeway extension the state was constructing.

“Market it and they will come. That’s my motto.” Landis slapped us both on the back. “You’re like me, Rudy. Making your own way in the world, I admire that.”

The receptionist knocked. “Time to go, Mr. Trey.”

“You got Daddy all set?”

“His nurses just took him across the street.”

“Thanks, Josie. I appreciate you.” Landis turned his attention back to Luigi and me. “Boys, been good meeting you. Hate to run off, but I’m expected at the hospital for a ribbon cutting. No rest for the wicked. Take care now.”

He shook hands with us again. The receptionist showed us out.

“Nice to meet you boys,” she said and locked the door behind us.

“That was different,” I said.

Luigi wiped his brow. He was sweating profusely. “I am pleased you agree. It was nerve reeking.”

“Wrecking.”

“That, too.” Luigi pointed to a row of tents set up on the hospital grounds. “Would you like a hot dog, Boone-san?”

 As part of the ribbon ceremony, they were giving away food and drinks. People were milling around the new wing, along with a handful of reporters with microphones. One of the Winston stations was setting up for a remote broadcast. I had never seen so many outsiders in town.

“Hot dogs?” I never turned down free food. “I could handle one or three.”

“Yes,” Luigi said. “That would be a good snack before stupor.”

“Supper.”

“That is what I meant.”

10

Between us, Luigi and I devoured a half-dozen hot dogs, four cans of Coke, and one jumbo-sized dill pickle. We only stopped eating when the vendors closed.

“Excellent snack.” Luigi patted his hard belly. “American food is the best.”

“Don’t let Cedar hear that. She’s a hardcore organic treehugger.”

“She hugs trees?”

“Metaphorically.”

“Ah.”

We drifted toward the ceremony. The crowd was gathering. The TV cameras were rolling. Trey Landis guided his father’s wheelchair to the stage. The crowd applauded, and Landis waved. His father nodded and waved his cane.

George Deems Landis was known as G.D. or Deems to his friends and God Damn to the men who had done business with him before he found religion. He sat quietly on the platform. A shrunken, knotted hand rested on a sliver-handled cane. His suit was immaculately tailored, but it was his shoes that gave him away. They were orthopedic slip-ons with flat soles. Shoes for old men too feeble to walk.

When the emcee called on G.D. to cut the ribbon, he tried to stand. For a few seconds he teetered. Then Trey lifted his father by the elbow and half-dragged him to the lectern.

“Mr. Landis,” the emcee said, “please accept this as a token of appreciation.”

He handed G.D. a large plaque. He almost dropped it. Trey saved the plaque and lifted it up like an Olympic gold medal.

“This is for you, Daddy!”

G.D. waved for him to stop. “The important thing,” the old man said in quavering voice, “is the children this new cancer wing are going to help. Let’s get the doors open. There’s young folks who need helping right now. Don’t y’all think?”

G.D. cut the ribbon with a pair of oversized yellow scissors. The crowd broke into applause. Trey helped his father into the wheelchair and steered him off the platform.

I wondered what Ethel Thayer Landis would think about her son building McMansions instead of hospitals.

“Boone!” Cedar walked up behind me and Luigi. She was wearing a tennis dress. "I have your item."

"Hey! Thought you were in meeting."

"Got out early." She slapped a plastic container into my hands. “Don’t ever ask me to do this again.”

“Sorry. I know a severed finger is disgusting.”

“The finger? I meant Stumpy’s trailer. Oh my god. And then, he refused to hand it over.”

I peeked inside, then quickly shut the lid. “How did you get it away from Stumpy?”

“Negotiation is my forte,” she said with a straight face. “I threatened to dissect him like a rat.”

“You were not serious?” Luigi asked.

She gave him a not-so-reassuring smile.

Luigi offered his hotdog to Cedar. “Would you like some?”

“Think context,” she said. “Finger plus food does not equal appetite. It equals regurgitation. Don’t you need a ride home?”

“I will walk,” Luigi said. “My host family lives only one mile away.”

“That’s a long walk,” I said, “and it’s almost dark. I’ll give you a ride.”

“No thank you, Boone-san. In Japan, I walk three miles to the train station every day. One mile is nothing. I need to make my legs stretchy.”

“That’s stretch your legs.”

“It is the same thing, no?” Luigi wiped his face with a napkin. He ran his hands through his gelled hair, making it spike in all directions. “Much better. Now when Gretchen sees me, she will recognize me.”

“Because you’re so hard to pick out of the crowd?” I asked.

“Exactly.” He waved. “See you in class, partner.”

We waved back.

Luigi turned down the road toward his host family’s house. His shiny ankle boots were completely wrong for walking. Blisters were in his future.

“He has a thing for Gretchen?” I asked.

“Huge crush. Didn’t you notice how he tries to get her attention? Juggling. Drawing her with manga eyes. Giving her little gifts.”

“Hadn’t noticed.”

“I am totally not surprised. You pay too much attention to molecules and let the big things slip by.”

We walked to Cedar’s car, a yellow VW Bug. It matched her sundress.She got in and rolled down her window. There was a tennis racket beside her. “Still on for dinner tomorrow?”

“Worried I changed my mind?”

“Not in the least.” She flashed a smile. “My schedule’s pretty full, and I don’t like to change it.”

“You can count on me. I won’t call a surprise practice.”

“Sorry to be neurotic. I’m not very good at curveballs.”

“Some theorize that a curveball is actually an optical illusion.”

“Hate to break it to you.” Cedar tilted her chin just so. Even sweaty from practice, she looked amazingly kissable. “Lyman Briggs used wind tunnel testing to prove that the backspin on the ball causes it to break, so a curveball does curve.”

“I’ll keep that in mind, in case I need to throw one.”

“Don’t even try it with me, mister,” she said. “I feast on the curve.”

Cedar backed out, pulled onto the highway, then sped off. She took the next turn on two wheels. Her taillights disappeared into the night.

“I bet you do,” I said and looked down at the plastic container.

Condensation had formed on the outside. It needed refrigeration. I put the container in my glove box and fired up the truck. How did just a finger, I wondered, end up in Stumpy’s yard? Who did it belong to, and where was the rest of the body?

Abner would know.

I dialed my grandfather and got voicemail. “Hey, Doc. There’s some evidence I want to show you. Call me back before it starts to rot.”

11

My family lived in a split-timber log house at the end of Tobacco Road. Lamar had built the house himself, and he had named the road after a bestselling novel about white trash. He said it made him laugh.

It made my mother cringe.

Lamar’s farm was about two hundred acres. He grew organic strawberries, Christmas trees, and scuppernong grapes. He also raised horses, miniature goats, and thirty head of Angus beef. Lamar had inherited the farm from his parents, who grew tobacco for fifty years. They passed away just before the tobacco market in North Carolina collapsed. Unlike many farmers in Allegheny County, Lamar had taken the death of tobacco in stride and diversified. He hated smoking anyway. It had killed both of his grandparents, parents, and only brother.